Duets and Cell Phones
by woobloo97
Summary: Jeff gets stuck in an elevator during a blackout. It's also the day of the group's holiday party.


_A/N: My first Community fic- written for virtual_toast over on livejournal as part of the Milady_Milord secret santa fic exchange. Reviews welcome, because I have no freaking idea how my characterization was._

When the lights go out, Annie's kind of pissed.

Shirley's livid. (_She's _got a pie in the oven.)

But still, the holidays usually have hot food, and the part of her that gets all big and doe-eyed around butterflies loves the twinkly lights that Shirley always puts up everywhere, so she isn't necessarily happy.

Her phone still has batteries, though, so she digs it out and is about to angrily punch in a number when that very same person calls her.

"Jeff!"

"Annie!"

"Why aren't you here yet? You said you'd get here twenty minutes ago and it's our holiday gathering. I mean, you don't live that far away from Greendale! How long does it take to leave the school, change your outfit, and come to Shirley's?"

"Annie, my outfit didn't look right! And I'm stuck in the elevator!"

"Oh my gosh, Jeff!" She looks around her. "The blackout?"

"No, magical unicorns came and barricaded the door! Yes, the blackout!" There's a pause. "Sorry."

She shakes her head a little, feelings not as hurt as he probably thinks they are. "Well, you'll just have to wait."

"I know." He sounds sulky, and let's be honest, Annie thinks, who wouldn't be, stuck with the lights out in an elevator during a holiday party.

"No, I mean, you'll actually have to wait a minute while I call the power company. I'll be able to get a time estimate...!" she says, in her best 'tempting' voice, but is immediately startled by Jeff's shriek.

"No! Don't go!"

"Aww, Jeff, are you scared to be alone in the dark?"

"I am not scared of the dark! Psssh, Annie, you crazy person..." Annie hears a long sigh. "I'm just- not overly fond of elevators. Particularly dark ones. It's so small in here, and dark, and small and dark and small-"

"Jeff, it's okay, I'm not laughing at you!"

"Please don't go, Annie, it's Christmas."

"It's not Christmas, it's our holiday gathering, which you were late to so really this is all your fault. And secondly, just remember that when you say 'it's Christmas,' you're talking to the Jewish girl in the group, so-"

"Oh, so now you're being coy? Mature, real mature, Annie."

"Hey, it's not often I have something you want. It's good for your ego if I play it up a little."

"Have you been listening to Britta? Let me tell you something, Annie, there are times when she sounds like she knows what she's doing, but every time you start listening to her, just remember this is the same woman who thought that ecology and evolution were the same thing."

Annie laughs a little and rolls her eyes. (She knows he can't see her over the phone, but then again she fixes her hair a little- semi-unconsciously- before she answers the phone when he calls.)

"So, don't you want to hear about the party?"

"I'll be there soon, Annie. I don't need the play-by-"

"Okay, well, there were twinkly lights everywhere, you know, the colored kind outside on the walk, which looked really, really pretty in the snow. And inside Shirley had a bunch of these lights that kind of looked like puffballs, they had a bunch of strings coming off of them and they looked like stars or something. Now, of course, we're sitting in the dark..."

"Doesn't Shirley have candles?"

"You'd think, right? But she really only had two, and one of them is 'decorative,' apparently."

"Just light it anyway. She can't argue if you're just sitting in the dark."

"Nooo... but she can do that thing when she stretches out her words and makes you feel like a terrible person."

"Pushover."

"Am not!"

"You totally are. You're ridiculously easy to manipulate. All someone has to do is make you feel like you're somehow failing your duty, and you'd bend over backwards to please them."

"Well, you never lift a finger to help anybody. I'm glad people can rely on me."

She's pretty sure he's the one rolling his eyes now, and the image of Jeff, lolled out in a dark elevator, rolling his eyes in empty space is so funny she can't help giggling.

"What are you laughing at?"

"I don't know!" she gasps out, and the ridiculousness of the situation hits her. She's at the holiday party, in the dark, talking on the phone to Jeff, laughing her head off.

She hears a throaty chuckle on the other end. "Are you drunk or something?"

"Jeff!" She wipes her eyes and lowers her voice. "I have to drive myself home tonight!"

"Sorry! I didn't mean to offend the designated driver!"

She smiles and shakes her head.

Suddenly a clatter from the living room interrupts the conversation, and Annie remembers that she's supposed to be comforting Jeff, because after all he is stuck in an elevator and he has nothing to do, and she can only imagine what kinds of things she'd be yelling if she got stuck in an elevator. He's remarkably pulled together, if she really stops and thinks about it.

"So I was telling you about the party."

"That's a non sequitur if I ever heard one."

"You're not distracting me. I am going to make you feel cheery and bright, or else!" She pauses and considers. "Don't say anything."

"Who? Me? I would like to point out, milady, that the term 'Irony-Free Annie-'"

"Alright, well, Abed, Troy and I made cookies last night, and they're really pretty... even the Inspector Spacetime ones. I will say that Blorgons turn out better in cookie form than you'd think."

"You're not making me cheery, just hungry."

"Hungry for cheery things." Annie drums her fingers on the floor. She's sitting in the hall, on the rug, back straight against the wall. "Oooh! I know what we could do!"

"Don't say sing carols."

"Sing carols! I'll bring you in the living room and we'll all sing together! If that's not festive, I don't know what is. And besides, we still have the one candle."

"You realize what Shirley and Andre probably use that for..."

"Jeff, get your mind out of the gutter."

"I said nothing! That's where _your_mind went."

"Oh come on, Jeff, that's the oldest trick in the book."

"What is?"

"Insinuating something, then professing innocence when someone picks up on the insinuation." Her lips curve up in a smile. "It's such a cliche. You're better than that."

"Excuse me, I'm better than nothing. My profession should prove that to you."

"Well, lame attempts to gross me out are not going to get you out of singing. I'm going to have you pressed up to my ear and everything and I'd better hear noise."

"Fine, whatever, as long as you realize how weird it is to be a thirty... ish man singing Christmas carols alone in a dark elevator."

"Well, normal is boring." And with that, Annie gets up and marches into the living room.

"Everyone!"

They're all huddled around the coffee table, which has the candle on it, eating the cookies (Annie sees Abed's saved the best Inspector Spacetime one off to the side) and chatting. When Annie approaches, they look up.

"Did you call the power company? How long is it going to be?"

"It better be soon. Jesus would _not_have wanted this. My pie's just sitting in the oven, half-baked."

"Yeah, half-baked like all religious theories!" Britta looks around at the blank faces. "Come on, that was a good burn! That's okay, I can high five myself."

"No, I was talking on the phone with Jeff, and we had the idea-" the noise Jeff makes in protest can be heard audibly even though the phone isn't on speaker- "_I _had the idea to sing carols while we wait for the lights to come back on."

There are some groans, some enthusiastic coos from Shirley, but in the end Annie wins because she always does, and they begin a chorus of "Deck the Halls."

At first Jeff only mutters the words, but they grow more and more enthusiastic (helped a lot by Shirley's boys, whose gusto is infectious) he too begins to actually sing, and after several rounds, he's just as loud as Annie is.

After a rousing rendition of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas," the group is worn out.

Everyone except for Annie. That phrase is foreign to her nature.

"Come _on_, guys. We have nothing else to do!" She pauses, then gives them her best "Disney eyes."

They look around at each other, but shake their heads. The Disney eyes never work on the rest of them as well as they work on Jeff.  
_  
"You_sing, Annie," Troy says.

"No way." She looks down at the phone in her hand. "Not by myself..."

"No."

"Please..."

"How come everyone else gets to stop?"

"Because they aren't grinches who are stuck in an elevator."

"No."

"Please, Jeff."

There's silence for a second, and she knows he's breaking.

"Do I need to blackmail you? 'Cause there's that thing you told me about when you were scuba diving that one time-"

"Let's sing!"

She smiles in satisfaction.

They start off tentative.  
_  
I'm dreaming of a White Christmas..._

She looks at the phone, and listens to his voice. He's really quite good. Kind of throaty, but in a...

Well, not in a sexy way. Not.  
_  
__Where the treetops glisten..._

Their voices fit together nicely.

_May your days be merry and bright..._

She's completely caught up in the song, staring at the phone.  
_  
And all your Christmases be white._

There's a pause, and she realizes her hands are clasped around the phone like it's a precious object. For a second her chest heaves, and she allows herself a moment of being purely caught up in the memory of his voice for a second.

Then the group starts clapping, and she jumps and smiles.

A few seconds later, the lights come on.

Annie's secretly convinced it was their duet that did it.

* * *

When Jeff gets to the gathering, he corners Annie. She looks up at him.

"Cookie?"

"Thanks."

"Drink?"

"I told you, I'm driving."

"Come on, just one?"

"Fine."

They sit down on the couch in comfortable silence, sipping the eggnog and watching Troy, Britta and Abed act out an Inspector Spacetime nativity that Annie's pretty sure would enrage Shirley if it wasn't so lovingly done. Pierce tries to join in. It doesn't go well.

In the ensuing kerfuffle, Annie takes the opportunity to turn to Jeff and say, "Admit it."

"Admit what?"

"The holidays are mushy and heartwarming, and you like it."

He does the eyebrow quirk, but then smiles and says, "The party's fun."

She sighs, but then smiles up at him and says, "Good enough."

They hold each other's gaze for a long time.


End file.
